Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, ca. 1830–32
Christina Rees and Brandon Zech discuss how hurricanes, fires, floods, earthquakes, tornados, and other disasters impact art, artists, and the ethos of cities.
“Texas in and of itself is a dramatic and exciting place to live, and it can also be a heartbreaking place to live.”
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Related reading:
—Houston Arts Alliance: Disaster Resilience for Artists & Non-Profits
—Houston Arts Alliance: Hurricane Preparedness Toolkit
—Glasstire’s Coverage of Hurricane Harvey
—Glasstire: Houston Arts Alliance Launches Disaster Resilience Website
—Glasstire: The Devil’s Own Day in Houston: Letter from the Publisher
—Glasstire: Harvey and the American Dream
—Glasstire: Artists’ Stories from Harvey
—Glasstire: One Year After Harvey: Houston Artists Revisited
—Glasstire: One Year After Harvey, Part Two: The Creative Community Restructures
—The New York Times: Where Creations Faced Destruction
—Observer: Chelsea the Day After the Storm
—Observer: The Art World After the Storm: Chelsea Dealers Still in Recovery Two Years From Sandy
—Hyperallergic: New York’s Art World Assessing Impact of Hurricane Sandy
—LAist: The Northridge Earthquake Was 25 Years Ago, And It Looked Like This
—The New Yorker: Capturing the Unicorn
—The New Yorker: The Really Big One
—Artspace: 5 Times Nature Won Over Art: Natural Disasters and Culture
—Artsy: We Can Do More to Protect the World’s Art and Architecture from Natural Disasters
—Artsy: How Art Storage Facilities Prepare for Natural Disasters
—Artsy: Wildfire Rages Near the Getty, but Museum Says “Safest Place” for Art Is Inside
—Hamburger Kunsthalle: Nature Unleashed: The Image of Catastrophe since 1600
2 comments
Hi Glasstire! Thank you so much for covering hurricanes and their psycho-emotional upon us working Gulf coast artists. As a born and raised Houstonian, I am no stranger the horrors of hurricanes. Hurricanes are traumatic. I wanted to share this recent 2020 radio interview that NPR Houston 88.7FM held between Houston Public Media arts correspondent, Catherine Lu, about my artwork,and its relationship to Hurricane Harvey. In the 88.7FM radio interview, I speak about my recent multi-media exhibition, SKY LOOP, at the Lawndale Art Center of Houston, Texas. You can access the interview via Apple iTunes podcasts or via NPR Houston public media: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/unwrap-your-candies-now/2020/02/21/361372/sky-loop-heals-memories-of-hurricane-harvey-and-american-idols-tamyra-gray-comes-to-tuts/
One can also read more about my show via a review conceived by Houston arts writer, Molly Glentzer, published in the Houston Chronicle: https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/art-exhibits/artist-finds-the-zen-of-hurricane-harvey-in-15032871
Documentation of my hurricane exhibition at Lawndale can be seen here: https://lawndaleartcenter.org/exhibition/virginia-lee-montgomery/
Finally, the Lawndale Art Center of Houston, Texas created an 11-minute video tour of my exhibition with the production assistance of artist Ryan Hawk. That tour may be seen via Lawndale’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ1_KPYZJuY
Thank you again featuring hurricane specific artworks. It means a lot to artists like me; sometimes I think it is hard for folks who did not grow up with hurricanes to fully understand their psychic impact. It’s a very sensitive topic for many of us, and one that always mandates empathy. Really loved your episode this week on hurricanes.. Wishing you and your’s safe tidings during these ecologically perilous times and than you again for producing the content that you do! With kindness and positive energy from Houston, VLM xx 🙂
This was a good conversation, but I at first thought it was going to be about how artists are responding to natural disasters artistically… might be a cool follow-up topic.